1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for remotely managing the maintenance of a set of facilities.
More particularly, although not exclusively, it applies to facilities installed in buildings, such as elevators, force-ventilation, air-conditioning and district heating systems, automatic parking lot gates, and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Presently, the maintenance of such facilities is ensured by maintenance companies that are bound through a maintenance contract to the company that manages such facilities. This contract provides for servicing, repairing and maintaining the facilities by maintenance engineers on a regular basis, and specifies the modalities and scheduling for inspection by these engineers.
In addition, there are known devices designed for monitoring a set of facilities operational parameters and thus, for detecting malfunctions and failures and for transmitting this information, for example over a telephone network, to the company in charge of the maintenance of such facilities. Thus, only one maintenance company may perform a real-time monitoring of the operation of several facilities distributed across far apart geographical locations and rapidly dispatch maintenance personnel on the site where the failure has been detected.
However, these devices do not allow to guarantee the facility manager or owner that the response time for servicing facility or that the frequency with which maintenance operations are performed, which are specified in the maintenance contract, are complied with by the maintenance company. In addition, if the contract provides for specific response or restarting times according to failure type, these devices do not allow the compliance with these times to be checked.
In addition, these devices frequently provide false alarms which induce unnecessary visits of maintenance personnel.